In a previous FW Council Europe (FWCE) position paper, Cracking the Programmatic Conundrum, we outlined three approaches being taken by premium video providers to incorporate programmatic trading to grow local markets, manage inventory more effectively and boost the overall value they can provide.
Premium video publishers and PayTV operators have a proven reputation of providing engaged environments for advertisers, and unique linear and digital offerings, characterised by the following:
Premium video requires very specific programmatic tools, for instance programmatic buying practices cannot simply be applied to live TV on digital channels. In the context of live TV, industry buyers (such as DSPs), need to build a robust infrastructure, able to manage high levels of concurrent viewership, delivering the right ad, to the right people, at the right pace. When executed well, premium video has the ability to deliver impactful campaigns through access to desirable, engaged audiences, in the most effective environments.
In order to deliver optimal ad selection across all demand channels, premium video publishers should consider an ad server that provides a unified decision across guaranteed and non-guaranteed campaigns whether they are executed via direct-sold insertion orders or programmatic OpenRTB bids.
Advanced ad servers offer an integrated supply side platform (SSP) to provide server-side access to programmatic demand which can be fed directly into the ad selection process.
A fully integrated SSP will offer important benefits for programmatic buyers:
There are a number of aspects involved with premium video, which media buyers, DSPs and other partners need to account for in their processes in order to take full advantage of the opportunity provided by this inventory.
To this end, the FreeWheel Council for Premium Video has put together a guide to help buy-side technology partners maximise programmatic delivery on premium inventory.
For instance, when it comes to user data for geo targeting, programmatic buyers often implement geography targeting within the DSP campaign settings, to optimise delivery to the most relevant users.
However, the absence or obfuscation of IP Address in the bid requests may result in the non-delivery of campaigns that use DSP geo targeting.
Best practices:
– Work with the ad-server team to determine the best way to handle geo- targeting in the absence of user data in the bid request.
– Encourage buyers to work with publishers to target deals towards particular geos.
– Consider implementing support for the OpenRTB Geo object, in particular geo.country and geo.zip.
The guide covers 10 key topics including: user data, measurement, pacing & reporting, unified decision, live streaming and programmatic guaranteed.